If I Fell

After my blog profile interview last week, I received the most comments from people about my choices in music and what artists and songs I liked. One of the songs I selected as a favorite struck a chord with my friend Pati, and she wrote to me about it. I think her thoughts sum up perfectly that connection between sound and memory. Here’s what she said:

It is magical how music can transport you from where you are to where you’ve been in an instant. When I hear the song “If I Fell” by The Beatles, I am sitting in the driveway of my first love’s parents’ house. He has a cassette tape (or was it an 8 track?) of the song playing and he is trying, quite desperately I might add, to harmonize with me. It was a bitter cold upstate winter evening, and he wasn’t letting me go until I had mastered this song. I still remember what he was wearing: his brown bomber jacket, Lou Reed t-shirt, classic levis, hi-top black converse sneakers. Anyway, we sat there shivering, teeth a-chatter, me desperately trying to sound like something other than I did. On one of these attempts, I made reasonable enough progress or he grew weary of my voice and I was let off the hook. The romantic lyrics, the steamed up windows, the lust and longing of teenage love all come barreling over me every time I hear that song. It is so intoxicating that I even forget what a horrible relationship that turned out to be.